The Fanblade

In 2006 I worked on a book about the new 787 programme, and as part of our research the Editors were taken around the world on a 40-year old corporate 727, visiting factories in North Carolina, Italy and Japan. We learned much about the technology of this game-changing aircraft, and I became a believer (trying to remain objective of course!) My instinct told me that perhaps all this was too good to be true and so it is turning out to be the case – but not exactly for the reason I had thought. Not yet, anyway. For now it is mainly problems at those global partners we visited almost two years ago, when they had just finished building their 787 facilities. Wing-box structural problems have also caused some delay – in a webcast earlier today current 787 general manager Pat Shanahan said that a miscalculation in finite element analysis meant strengthening was required just as wiring work was coming to the centre section – causing a month or so delay. All in all, the latest slippage is, says Boeing, conservative enough to account (hopefully) for any other unforeseen problems. There’s essentially a six-month slippage, two months to system power-up (now June), two months extra between that and first flight, and two months leeway in the flight test programme. As AIN has just reported on its daily news e-mail, the 25 aircraft that will now be delivered in 2009 is less than the 35 that were moved from 2008 due to the first slippage. The Times of London reported this morning that the total slippage would be 18 months, compared to the original plan, and they were right. Let’s hope there are no more problems with the potentially game-changing aircraft, so that we really can see the first flight by Christmas this year.